Bitten by Cupid (6 page)

Tiny sighed to himself, thinking it might be nice to be an immortal if he could then guard his thoughts from others. It was bad enough having every adult immortal he encountered in his head, but even worse to have Stephanie in their sifting through his sometimes less than PG-13 thoughts. He would definitely need to start editing his own thinking around the girl.

“Hey! What are these?”

Tiny glanced to the girl to see that she’d found the tattoos. Clearing his throat, he said, “I thought you might have fun with them. I know they aren’t the same as getting a real tattoo, but that just means you can change them as you like and won’t be stuck with one you might get tired of.”

“That’s true, I guess,” she murmured, leafing through the sheets of tattoos. “How come they’re all hearts and lovey-dovey stuff?”

“It’s Valentine’s today, kiddo,” he pointed out, then realized that wasn’t true. While the wedding ceremony had taken place on Valentine’s Day—an effort he suspected to be sure the men never forgot their anniversary—it was now past midnight and February fifteenth. Shrugging, he added, “That’s all they had besides I
NEW YORK tattoos, and I didn’t think you’d be interested in them.”

“No,” she agreed with a grimace, then brightened. “I’m going to show Mirabeau. Where is she?”

“My bathroom,” Tiny guessed, and when she quickly headed in that direction, warned, “She’s probably in the tub.”

But he was too late. Like all immortals, the kid could move fast. By the time he even started the warning Stephanie had already passed through his room, and burst into the bathroom. He winced and moved into his bedroom as he heard Mirabeau squawk, curse, and ask something about the girl’s having any boundaries.

“Sorry.” Stephanie’s voice sounded deflated, and there was misery on her face as she turned toward the door, muttering, “I used to talk to my mom all the time while she was in the tub. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

He caught a glimpse of Mirabeau as Stephanie shifted to leave the room and saw that she was now biting her lip, regret on her face. He smiled to himself when she suddenly said, “So did I.”

He’d known she could handle the kid and wasn’t at all surprised when Stephanie paused and turned back uncertainly to ask, “Really?”

He saw Mirabeau nod solemnly and was just thinking it would be all right when Stephanie said, “They had baths in your day?”

That had definitely been the wrong thing to say. The kid didn’t seem to be able to say anything to Mirabeau that wasn’t insulting, and he wasn’t surprised to see Mirabeau’s eyes narrow, though he was surprised that he was managing to keep his eyes on her face. Fortunately, only her head and upper shoulders were sticking out of the sea of foamy bubbles in his bathtub.

“Can you say
anything
that isn’t insulting?” Mirabeau asked grimly. “Did the turn somehow eradicate your manners? Or maybe your mother never taught you any.”

“She did too,” Stephanie said at once, her voice high and harsh. “She was a good mom.”

“So what’s your problem?” Mirabeau asked.

“What’s
your
problem?” Stephanie countered, and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Tiny stepped out of her way as she passed and watched her go with a sigh. His head came back around to the bathroom door, however, when he heard sloshing water in the bathroom. Mirabeau was getting out of the tub, he realized. Not wanting to get caught eyeing the door, he busied himself emptying his pockets in preparation for stripping to take his own bath. When he finished, he moved out to retrieve the 3X T-shirt and joggers he’d bought for himself as well as the black tank top, a medium-sized T-shirt, and the medium-sized joggers he’d bought for Mirabeau.

He was carrying them into the bedroom when the bathroom door opened and Mirabeau appeared, wrapped in a towel. The sight brought him to a dead halt. It wasn’t that she wasn’t covered at all the important points, but he couldn’t help but be aware that she was completely naked beneath the towel.

She paused on spotting him and her shoulders sagged as she said wryly, “I guess I didn’t handle her as well as you’d hoped.”

Tiny couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from their inventory of the naked flesh visible above and below the towel, but did manage to murmur, “Well, she was kind of rude.”

“I was probably ruder at her age,” Mirabeau admitted wearily, then noticed the clothes he held and started forward, her expression brightening. “You found clothes?”

She said it in a tone of voice he would have only expected from an offering of a designer original, but he completely understood her happiness. He’d been pretty thrilled himself when he’d spotted the clothes in the store.

Tossing the clothes for him on the bed, he offered the others to her. “I guessed you were a medium, but wasn’t sure which you’d prefer. I thought probably the tank top, but it is winter, so—”

“Cold doesn’t bother me,” Mirabeau assured him, choosing the tank top as he’d hoped.

Her words made him wish he’d brought the short shorts as well. She probably wouldn’t have worn them, but he could fantasize.

“These are great,” Mirabeau said happily as she took the joggers as well. When she caught his wry expression she laughed, and pointed out, “They don’t stink and cover more than a towel.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he admitted, his eyes dropping to run over the back of her legs as she spun away and headed for her own room.

“I rinsed the bath, it’s ready if you want to take your turn at it,” she said, then slipped through the door and out of sight. Tiny sighed as the door closed behind her. He supposed it had been too much to hope that the towel might slip or something. Ah well…He would shower to wash the stink away, then eat some of those sandwiches he’d brought back. While he was hungry, the thought of eating in his present state just made him want to gag.

Chapter Seven

Stephanie was sitting cross-legged on the far bed when Mirabeau entered the room they were to share. She supposed that meant the nearer bed was hers and dropped the clothes on it, then whipped off her towel and grabbed up the joggers to pull them on, aware that Stephanie was watching her. She wasn’t self-conscious about her body. The nanos her kind had in their bodies had been programmed to fight illness, repair injuries, and keep them at their peak condition. Peak meant young and healthy, and she knew she looked her best. Or perhaps it was just that after so many years she’d been naked in front of so many people for one reason or another that it didn’t bother her any-y more. Mirabeau didn’t know or care why it didn’t bother her. She didn’t even really think about the fact that she was naked until Stephanie spoke.

“You don’t shave your legs,” the girl said with surprise. And then her eyes widened with sudden alarm, and she asked, “We can shave and wax our legs, can’t we? The nanos don’t just make it grow back within minutes or anything, do they?”

Mirabeau paused and glanced down at her legs, which were sporting a soft feathering of hair that, until Stephanie had spoken, hadn’t bothered her. Now she worried about it and thought she would have to pick up a razor or something on the way to Port Henry. She would need to shave before seducing Tiny, and Mirabeau was growing more and more determined to do that once this assignment was over. Aside from being attractive physically, she was starting to find him very attractive in personality as well. She’d known he was a good man from the stories Marguerite had told her, but his empathy and patience with Stephanie were really making an impression on her. She wasn’t the patient sort herself. Never had been. Perhaps that was why the trait in him was so attractive to her.

Pushing that thought aside, she glanced at Stephanie, and said, “Of course we can shave. It doesn’t grow right back. Hairs are strands of dead cells or whatever, nanos don’t bother with them.”

“Oh.” Stephanie looked relieved, and asked, “So why don’t you shave?”

“I do, I just haven’t bothered in a while,” she muttered. Mirabeau had started shaving along with every other woman in the world when it had become popular. But it had been so long since she’d been interested in dating or anything of that nature that she’d stopped bothering.

“What’s it like?” Stephanie asked, as Mirabeau finished donning the joggers and reached for the black tank top.

“What?” she asked absently as she pulled the top on over her head.

“Being so old?”

Mirabeau turned on the girl with exasperation as she tugged the tank into place. Before she could snap at her, however, Stephanie said quickly, “I’m not trying to insult you, I just mean, you know…what’s it like to live so long?”

Mirabeau forced herself to relax and shrugged. “I don’t know. It just is. I guess you’ll find out in time.”

“Yeah, in a century or so,” Stephanie said dryly, then fell silent and watched as Mirabeau moved to the mirror over the dresser to run her fingers through her damp hair, trying to bring some order to the tangled strands.

It was an impossible task without any sort of brush, Mirabeau decided, scowling at her reflection and wondering if she could remove the remaining extensions or if had to be done by a hairdresser. It had hurt like the devil when the fellow in the sewers had ripped out that clump of extensions, but she’d checked and didn’t appear to have been snatched bald back there. Perhaps she could just yank out the remaining extensions as well.

“Does it ever get better?”

“What?” Mirabeau asked with distraction.

“The pain of losing them?” Stephanie said quietly, and Mirabeau was just wondering if she meant her hair extensions, when the girl added, “Tiny told me you lost your family too, and I…It hurts so much sometimes, and I can tell you still hurt, and I…”

Mirabeau stopped messing with her hair and turned to peer at the girl. There was real agony on her face, which made panic well up inside Mirabeau. She wasn’t good with emotional stuff. In fact, she generally avoided situations that involved it like the plague. However, Stephanie was hurting, and there was no one else there to help her. Swallowing thickly, she moved to the side of Stephanie’s bed to sit on the edge…and stared at her briefly before reluctantly raising a hand to set on the girl’s leg in what she hoped was a comforting touch. Clearing her throat, she said, “It does hurt, and I am hurting right now because your situation reminds me of my own, and it hurts me at holidays and special occasions too, but it eases a bit, gets easier to bear…and you do have Dani for those holidays.”

Stephanie swallowed and nodded solemnly. “You don’t even have that, do you?”

Mirabeau felt her throat close up. She grimly swallowed away the lump and tried desperately to change the subject by asking, “Do you want me to put one of your tattoos on for you?”

Stephanie hesitated, eyeing her silently, and Mirabeau knew the little brat was wading through her thoughts. It made her wonder how the hell the kid kept doing that. She was a new turn. New turns couldn’t read even mortals as a rule. It was a skill they had to learn. She shouldn’t be able to read at all yet, let alone someone as old as Mirabeau.

“Really?” Stephanie asked, sitting up a little straighter and pleasure twitching the corners of her mouth. “I know Dani can’t read minds yet, but I thought that was just her.”

“No, it’s not just her,” Mirabeau assured her quietly, relieved to have the subject changed and the kid looking less weepy. She didn’t know what she would have done if the girl had turned on the waterworks. Seeing that she was pleased by her unusual ability, Mirabeau added, “You seem to be a special case. A natural reader. It’s rare.”

Stephanie grinned and held up the sheet of tattoos she had been clutching. “Which one do you want?”

Mirabeau blinked. “I didn’t mean I’d put a tattoo on me. I meant I’d put one on you for you.”

“Oh I know,” Stephanie said with a grin. “But I don’t want you to mess it up. We’ll do you first. That way we can figure out what we’re doing.”

Mirabeau gave a small, disbelieving laugh at the words. “So we experiment on me so that we don’t mess up when we put on yours?”

“Exactly,” she said, her grin widening farther.

Despite herself, Mirabeau chuckled, but then sighed and shook her head as she glanced over the tattoos Stephanie held. “Fine. Give me Cupid then.”

Stephanie’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Why Cupid?”

“Because he’s an archer, and so am I,” she said simply.

“Really?” Stephanie asked curiously as she began to prepare the tattoo.

“Yes. My mother trained me as a child, and I’ve kept it up over the centuries. I actually prefer the bow and arrow to a gun—much quieter and easy to see if you’ve hit your mark. Besides, our bodies can push out bullets given a little time, but they can’t force out the larger, heavier arrow. So if you hit a bad guy with an arrow, he isn’t likely to get up again unless you remove the arrow for him.”

Stephanie seemed impressed. “Can you teach me archery?”

“We’ll see,” Mirabeau murmured, unwilling to make a promise unless she was sure she could keep it.

“That’s a good policy,” Stephanie said solemnly, then raised the tattoo and asked, “Where do you want it?”

“My arm,” Mirabeau answered at once. She sat silent and still as Stephanie set to work transferring the temporary tattoo to her upper arm, her concentration on watching what she was doing. She was taken by surprise when Stephanie suddenly said, “I do have Dani, but she’s kind of wrapped up in Decker right now. Sometimes it feels like I lost her too.”